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- Apr 12, 2005
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1. When did you start writing poetry?
I began writing poems around age 8 or 9 in a leather-bound diary that could be locked with a key. When I read an entry (misspelled and sloppy) that I hadn’t written, I realized that my brother had been reading my personal, private thoughts and became enraged to the point of ripping out pages and scribbling “I quit” on the remaining pages. Still, I continued to write poems, songs and stories on loose leaf notebook paper, taking care to relocate the stash frequently. At age 12 I finally found a safe place to keep my writing – a place inviolate and beyond the reach of nosy brothers – the bottom of the Kotex box!
2. What other writing do you do regularly?
I’ve been working on a short-story for 5 years. I think it’s almost ready.
3. Do you think of yourself primarily as a poet?
No, but I love it when others do.
4. Why do you write poetry?
I write poetry because I have a driving need to put words to good use.
5. How does writing poetry relate with your other writing?
So far my poetry and prose have failed to make a meaningful connection with each other. A smattering of polite civility at weddings and funerals is about the most they can muster at this point. I’m considering an intervention.
6. Beyond Absolute Write, what is your publication/performance history?
I’ve had a few poems posted at Every Day Poets, one of which will be included in the upcoming EDP Anthology II. I’ve had a poem posted at AuthorScoop, and later this month one of my poems will be online at the new e-zine Evertalis. I have attended a few local poetry gatherings on open-mic nights and read some of my work. I won First Place in a VFW “Voice of America” competition in High School and read it aloud at the awards ceremony.
http://www.evertalis.org/
http://authorscoop.com/
http://www.everydaypoets.com/
7. How often do you write poems?
WooHoo! Sometimes I do it three times a day! I’m a spontaneous type, so there’s really no telling, but I’ve had my share of dry spells where nothing happens for weeks.
8. What goals, if any, do you have for your poetry?
My goal, or purpose, in writing poetry is to gather words and put them together in a way that sounds good, makes sense and reveals or reflects upon a particular truth about myself or life in general. Of course, I’d love to write a poem of great significance and meaning, a poem that would make a difference or somehow change the world for the better. lol.
9. Do you set out to write a poem, does it compel you to write it, or something else?
Years ago, I would sit down with the intention of writing poetry. Now, if I am really “in the mood” to write something I look over older poems that are in the edit or to-be-finished pile. Usually I write when the feeling (a bloat-y sort of mental cramp, like the sloughing of excess verbiage) strikes me. So basically, I’m compelled to write poetry and I hope I always will be.
10. What formal, semantic, or thematic traits do you prefer to use in your poems?
All of them! (but not in a single poem)
11. Which usually comes first: Topic/idea, form, words? Other?
Since I usually write from an internal or external prompt of some sort, I often begin a poem when a word or phrase occurs to me (all the better if accompanied by an overall sense of the topic, idea or image) seeking release or expression. So I guess the answer would be: Other?
12. Do you revise? Right away, later on? How do you decide when you've finished with a poem?
I’ve revised many of my poems and I’ve written some that needed few, if any, edits. Sometimes edits are instigated by the comments of others; (a big reason why I so appreciate the Critique Forum here at AW) at other times I make changes to a poem (especially those I haven’t read in a while) because I think of a better way to say what I was trying to say in the first place. A poem is “finished” when I read it and nothing niggles or feels out-of-place – a barely technical and ultimately subjective set of conditions.
13. How did you come to be interested in poetry?
I became interested in poetry when I heard Bullwinkle reciting “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv1L-8f2erg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBWhk...eature=related
14. What particular poem or poet first attracted you to poetry?
Well, after reading a lot of Dr. Seuss and watching the Bullwinkle show, I was primed for poetry. I can’t say for sure if “Charge of the Light Brigade” was the breakthrough poem for me, but I did go around saying, “Cannon to the right of them, /Cannon to the left of them, /Cannon in front of them /Volley'd and thunder'd” an awful lot, to which family members will attest.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
15. What poems, poets, movements or eras have influenced you as a poet: which do you particularly enjoy, admire, or aspire toward?
My personal study of poetry followed a thread loosely chronological; after initial attempts to see the entire tapestry of verse from Siren Songs to Howl, I studied my Paradise Lost and a few of the Romantics, (Wordsworth, Keats, Poe & Dickinson) then engaged in readings on the side (sometimes in both French & English) from the Symbolists (Baudelaire, Rimbaud & Verlaine) thru Surrealists (Apollinaire & Breton) to Dada; then I slipped into the Beats, which of course led me to Dylan, which of course led me to the other Dylan; later on, a study of some Celtic poetry, via my interest in Yeats, led me to Seamus Heaney, a contemporary poet for whom I have great admiration. I have also investigated the tonal & rhythmic expressions of primitive cultures. My formal study of poetry in college was unremarkable save the acquisition of one of my all-time favorite books, The Norton Anthology of English Literature.
16. What single poem of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read your work?
This one I just posted in Chapbook:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210981
17. What are your thoughts on poetry today: its function, future, direction, relevance?
Poetry seems overshadowed by song lyrics (and RAP) now, and I don’t know if it will ever regain even a modicum of its former relevance with that kind of competition. I am confident that there will always be, perhaps small in number but surely eclectic in sensibilities, a group of people who appreciate poetry. As for the future of poetry: I’m not sure where it’s going but I am definitely up for the ride, wherever it may take me!
18. What, in your view, makes a written/spoken work a poem?
I’d like to say that I give a lot of latitude and allow for the expansion and contraction of certain criteria when considering whether a group of words falls into the prose, poetry or even prose-poem category, but I’m pretty sure I often fail in that regard. I won’t pin myself down by saying something arch that I may later regret, but I will say this: “I know it when I see it.”
19. What do you like about your own poetry?
That it exists!! Seriously, I like it when my poems have a rhythm and movement that propels the reader onward and (hopefully) back to the beginning of the poem for another read. I strive to deliver that kind of “motion” while ever mindful of the need to keep the actual meaning or message from getting lost in the “sound & fury” of the words.
20. What would you say to someone who wants to learn to write poetry well?
Good Luck.
I began writing poems around age 8 or 9 in a leather-bound diary that could be locked with a key. When I read an entry (misspelled and sloppy) that I hadn’t written, I realized that my brother had been reading my personal, private thoughts and became enraged to the point of ripping out pages and scribbling “I quit” on the remaining pages. Still, I continued to write poems, songs and stories on loose leaf notebook paper, taking care to relocate the stash frequently. At age 12 I finally found a safe place to keep my writing – a place inviolate and beyond the reach of nosy brothers – the bottom of the Kotex box!
2. What other writing do you do regularly?
I’ve been working on a short-story for 5 years. I think it’s almost ready.
3. Do you think of yourself primarily as a poet?
No, but I love it when others do.
4. Why do you write poetry?
I write poetry because I have a driving need to put words to good use.
5. How does writing poetry relate with your other writing?
So far my poetry and prose have failed to make a meaningful connection with each other. A smattering of polite civility at weddings and funerals is about the most they can muster at this point. I’m considering an intervention.
6. Beyond Absolute Write, what is your publication/performance history?
I’ve had a few poems posted at Every Day Poets, one of which will be included in the upcoming EDP Anthology II. I’ve had a poem posted at AuthorScoop, and later this month one of my poems will be online at the new e-zine Evertalis. I have attended a few local poetry gatherings on open-mic nights and read some of my work. I won First Place in a VFW “Voice of America” competition in High School and read it aloud at the awards ceremony.
http://www.evertalis.org/
http://authorscoop.com/
http://www.everydaypoets.com/
7. How often do you write poems?
WooHoo! Sometimes I do it three times a day! I’m a spontaneous type, so there’s really no telling, but I’ve had my share of dry spells where nothing happens for weeks.
8. What goals, if any, do you have for your poetry?
My goal, or purpose, in writing poetry is to gather words and put them together in a way that sounds good, makes sense and reveals or reflects upon a particular truth about myself or life in general. Of course, I’d love to write a poem of great significance and meaning, a poem that would make a difference or somehow change the world for the better. lol.
9. Do you set out to write a poem, does it compel you to write it, or something else?
Years ago, I would sit down with the intention of writing poetry. Now, if I am really “in the mood” to write something I look over older poems that are in the edit or to-be-finished pile. Usually I write when the feeling (a bloat-y sort of mental cramp, like the sloughing of excess verbiage) strikes me. So basically, I’m compelled to write poetry and I hope I always will be.
10. What formal, semantic, or thematic traits do you prefer to use in your poems?
All of them! (but not in a single poem)
11. Which usually comes first: Topic/idea, form, words? Other?
Since I usually write from an internal or external prompt of some sort, I often begin a poem when a word or phrase occurs to me (all the better if accompanied by an overall sense of the topic, idea or image) seeking release or expression. So I guess the answer would be: Other?
12. Do you revise? Right away, later on? How do you decide when you've finished with a poem?
I’ve revised many of my poems and I’ve written some that needed few, if any, edits. Sometimes edits are instigated by the comments of others; (a big reason why I so appreciate the Critique Forum here at AW) at other times I make changes to a poem (especially those I haven’t read in a while) because I think of a better way to say what I was trying to say in the first place. A poem is “finished” when I read it and nothing niggles or feels out-of-place – a barely technical and ultimately subjective set of conditions.
13. How did you come to be interested in poetry?
I became interested in poetry when I heard Bullwinkle reciting “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv1L-8f2erg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBWhk...eature=related
14. What particular poem or poet first attracted you to poetry?
Well, after reading a lot of Dr. Seuss and watching the Bullwinkle show, I was primed for poetry. I can’t say for sure if “Charge of the Light Brigade” was the breakthrough poem for me, but I did go around saying, “Cannon to the right of them, /Cannon to the left of them, /Cannon in front of them /Volley'd and thunder'd” an awful lot, to which family members will attest.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
15. What poems, poets, movements or eras have influenced you as a poet: which do you particularly enjoy, admire, or aspire toward?
My personal study of poetry followed a thread loosely chronological; after initial attempts to see the entire tapestry of verse from Siren Songs to Howl, I studied my Paradise Lost and a few of the Romantics, (Wordsworth, Keats, Poe & Dickinson) then engaged in readings on the side (sometimes in both French & English) from the Symbolists (Baudelaire, Rimbaud & Verlaine) thru Surrealists (Apollinaire & Breton) to Dada; then I slipped into the Beats, which of course led me to Dylan, which of course led me to the other Dylan; later on, a study of some Celtic poetry, via my interest in Yeats, led me to Seamus Heaney, a contemporary poet for whom I have great admiration. I have also investigated the tonal & rhythmic expressions of primitive cultures. My formal study of poetry in college was unremarkable save the acquisition of one of my all-time favorite books, The Norton Anthology of English Literature.
16. What single poem of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read your work?
This one I just posted in Chapbook:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210981
17. What are your thoughts on poetry today: its function, future, direction, relevance?
Poetry seems overshadowed by song lyrics (and RAP) now, and I don’t know if it will ever regain even a modicum of its former relevance with that kind of competition. I am confident that there will always be, perhaps small in number but surely eclectic in sensibilities, a group of people who appreciate poetry. As for the future of poetry: I’m not sure where it’s going but I am definitely up for the ride, wherever it may take me!
18. What, in your view, makes a written/spoken work a poem?
I’d like to say that I give a lot of latitude and allow for the expansion and contraction of certain criteria when considering whether a group of words falls into the prose, poetry or even prose-poem category, but I’m pretty sure I often fail in that regard. I won’t pin myself down by saying something arch that I may later regret, but I will say this: “I know it when I see it.”
19. What do you like about your own poetry?
That it exists!! Seriously, I like it when my poems have a rhythm and movement that propels the reader onward and (hopefully) back to the beginning of the poem for another read. I strive to deliver that kind of “motion” while ever mindful of the need to keep the actual meaning or message from getting lost in the “sound & fury” of the words.
20. What would you say to someone who wants to learn to write poetry well?
Good Luck.
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